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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24954502">in a moment still falling</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquidpedalian/pseuds/sesquidpedalian'>sesquidpedalian</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dr. Stone Week 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Dr. STONE (Anime)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, Character Study, Forgiveness, Friendship, Gen, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Non-Linear Narrative, Sort Of, i don't know how time works and it shows</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 09:29:41</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>5,668</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24954502</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/sesquidpedalian/pseuds/sesquidpedalian</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All stories change in their telling. The numerical curves and planes of space and time shift as their tellers move through it, shaping past, present, and future like half-melted candle wax. If there is anything like a first version of this story, it begins with this: Tsukasa meets Senku.</p>
<p>For Dr. Stone Week 2020 Day One: Time and Space - Time Travel, AU, Counting</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Ishigami Senkuu &amp; Ogawa Yuzuriha &amp; Ooki Taiju, Ishigami Senkuu &amp; Shishiou Tsukasa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Dr. Stone Week 2020 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/2078955</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Dr. Stone Week 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in a moment still falling</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>title inspired by this Welcome to Night Vale quote: "Time is like wax, dripping from a candle flame. In the moment, it is molten and falling, with the capability to transform into any shape. Then the moment passes, and the wax hits the tabletop, and solidifies into the shape it will always be. It becomes the past, a solid, single record of what happened, still holding in its wild curves and contours the potential of every shape it could have held." (Episode 21 - A Memory of Europe)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The final time he jumps, Senku finds him first.</p>
<p>“One thousand.” Senku cocks his head to one side, sticks an insouciant finger in his ear. “Usually, in shows, this is the part where I ask you if it was worth it.”</p>
<p>“Yes.”</p>
<p>Senku shrugs. “I don't care one millimeter what you have to say. It wasn't worth it, idiot. It never is. It never will be.” </p>
<p>“What could you possibly know?” Tsukasa snarls. “What could you know of—”</p>
<p>“—watching your little sister die, over and over, slow and painful, unable to give her even the slightest comfort to rescue her from her suffering?” Senku, for a moment, seems to step out of his lanky body, all child-like proportions and messy hair. Tsukasa feels the strange tumbling-without-moving sensation of walking outside time, but now it’s as if Senku brought him here, to this place beyond places. “I tried to rebuild what you left behind every time. You don't <em> fix </em> anything by pretending it never happened. You know better than that, Tsukasa.”</p>
<p>“And you? You have never wished for impossible things? You have never wished to end a loved one's suffering? Have you ever even felt love before, you stone-hearted monster?”</p>
<p>Senku smiles, slow and terrible, his expression fixed somewhere in the middle distance. “It wasn’t worth it.”</p>
<hr/>
<p>All stories change in their telling. The numerical curves and planes of space and time shift as their tellers move through it, shaping past, present, and future like half-melted candle wax. If there is anything like a first version of this story, it begins with this: Tsukasa meets Senku.</p>
<p>The exact circumstances blur. They look like this:</p>
<p>Saved from bullies.</p>
<p>Worked together on a science project.</p>
<p>Bumped into each other at the store, one’s arms full of batteries, the other one’s full of stuffed animals.</p>
<p>Ducked under the same overhang to glare up at the pouring rainstorm and smile ruefully at each other.</p>
<p>Met eyes over the shattered stony shards of a long-dead fisherman and felt the yawning rift of time open, hungry and gaping, between them, swallowing in an instant all that could have been.</p>
<p>What does not blur are these:</p>
<p>A hand on his shoulder, a threat or a welcome or a comfort or a warning.</p>
<p>A boy named Taiju. A girl named Yuzuriha.</p>
<p>Senku’s dangerous smile.</p>
<p>A pale, pale body, and not a seashell in sight.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The first version of this story that Tsukasa knows starts with this pale body, and the bustle of a hospital that should be in mourning, and the worried, meaningless murmurs of grown-ups that had the world in their hands and did nothing to save it.</p>
<p>In that lumpy, uncomfortable hospital chair is the first and last time Tsukasa cries, in every version of this story. Time slips away through his tear-stained fingers. He doesn’t count the seconds, minutes, hours, whatever they may be, doesn’t mark the sympathetic words tossed in his direction like scraps thrown to a dog. He cries until he looks up and sees his sister’s body, cold and alone. </p>
<p>He feeds that image into the simmering fire he’s carried since the day he had to walk in here bruised and empty-handed and ready to die. It’s scalding hot.</p>
<p>Then he leaves.</p>
<p>In this version, he walks away through the door, although there are versions (he feels them tugging at him sometimes) where it is the window he goes by, or where he does not leave at all. In no version that he knows of does his little sister ever get to leave on her own two feet.</p>
<p>As if in a dream, he goes to Senku’s house, where Taiju and Yuzuriha have gathered. The three friends are hunched over another contraption of Senku’s and laughing loudly as they talk. Tsukasa, for an awful, delirious moment, wants to hit them. They wouldn’t be able to stop him, after all. And what right do they have to that noisy joy, in this stinking, rotten world?</p>
<p>Senku sees him first, and his expression settles, inscrutable. He gets up, sets a hand on Tsukasa’s shoulder. “Well?” he asks. “How’s your sister?”</p>
<p>It croaks out of his mouth on its own. “Dead. She’s dead.” </p>
<p>There is something quietly gratifying about the way the words seem to hit them with the same weight it hit him, like they’ve been struck by hurled stones for reasons still unknown, the universe’s directionless fury shot straight through their hearts. Grief rises in his throat, closes it off from saying any more terrible things.</p>
<p>“I’m so sorry,” Yuzuriha murmurs. She stands, and so does Taiju, though it is clear there is nothing to be done.</p>
<p>Senku is still watching him with appraising eyes. Tsukasa bows his head.</p>
<p>“Come on,” Senku says, grabbing Tsukasa by the arm, tugging him inside. “My dad left this weird dish in the fridge; we were waiting for you to come back to see if I get food poisoning from eating it.”</p>
<p>“If you’re okay with that,” Yuzuriha chimes in. “You don’t have to. But I’d hate the thought of leaving you all alone right now.”</p>
<p>“You’ll stay with us, won’t you, Tsukasa?” Taiju says, trying for a smile.</p>
<p>Tsukasa doesn’t say anything, but he also doesn’t try to leave, and Taiju claps him on the back, his usual enthusiasm just a touch muted. </p>
<p>That night, he sleeps over at Senku’s house with the other two. He dreams of waves, of glittering blue ocean, of an island deserted. He wakes up and gasps raggedly into his hands without crying. If it’s audible over the sound of Taiju snoring, no one asks about it the next morning. </p>
<p>Try as they might to get him to stay longer, after breakfast, he goes home to a dark, empty little apartment, tears down every reminder of his old life, and builds something that will fix everything.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The boy, huffing with exertion, looks up at him and cocks his head. “One,” he says.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry?” Tsukasa says.</p>
<p>“I’m Senku.” He holds out one hand. “Nice to meet you. Could you help me carry this stuff home?”</p>
<p>In the arm that isn’t being held out for a handshake, Senku is carrying a giant heap of metal and circuits. Presumably, they look more useful to him than they do to Tsukasa. Tsukasa doesn’t have any particular interest in machinery. Why should he?</p>
<p>A second too late, he realizes he should introduce himself. “My name is Shishio Tsukasa,” he says. “Have we...met before?”</p>
<p>Senku hums noncommittally.</p>
<p>“I know this sounds strange,” Tsukasa continues, “but you seem very familiar.”</p>
<p>Senku’s entire demeanor changes like a flicked switch. He throws his head back and <em> cackles</em>, a wild light dancing in his eyes. “You know me, don’t you?” He waves the hand that isn’t precariously balancing a pile of parts taller than his spiked-up, two-toned hair. He looks ridiculous, and Tsukasa can’t help the beginnings of a smile.</p>
<p>Senku leans over and his tower of metal wobbles ominously. “You do know me! You saw me on TV, didn’t you? Ha! And my dad had the nerve to say no one my age would care about my interview on the use of carbon nanotubes for water filtration in poverty-stricken countries! That old man doesn’t know <em> anything.</em>”</p>
<p>He is still grinning hugely when Tsukasa says, “Uh, no, actually, I don’t really watch TV.” He doesn’t much feel like telling this total stranger his TV is over a decade old and he’s too busy watching his sister weaken with every passing day to bother looking at all the other ways the wealthy ancients of the world are tearing things apart.</p>
<p>“No? Too bad, we could have bonded over Doraemon. Here,” Senku says, dumping some of his heap of materials into Tsukasa’s arms. “You’re not going anywhere, are you?” He practically chirps the words, and Tsukasa feels this is getting a bit over-the-top.</p>
<p>“I really should be getting home…”</p>
<p>“Got someone waiting up for you?” Senku rolls his shoulders, newly freed from some of the weight, and throws a sly glance over at Tsukasa that doesn’t completely hide the curious twitch of his mouth. It’s an incredibly <em> Senku </em> kind of expression, which makes Tsukasa blink hard. He just <em> met </em>Senku. How does he know anything about this absurd boy?</p>
<p>“Not exactly,” Tsukasa says slowly.</p>
<p>“Perfect,” says Senku, smiling evilly as he walks away. Tsukasa takes two seconds to gather his bearings and then decides, yeah, he wasn’t doing anything tonight anyway. </p>
<p>“Let’s hope my dad isn’t home.”</p>
<p>“Is your father a bad person?”</p>
<p>Senku laughs, sounding unnervingly like a subpar movie’s impression of a mad scientist. “Not at all. He’s an idiot, but…” Senku shrugs to indicate everything else his teenage pride won’t let him say. “He takes me out for ramen all the time, and if I show up at home with you he’ll probably make us go that place down the street and tell you a bunch of embarrassing stories from when I was a little kid.”</p>
<p>“Does he normally do that?”</p>
<p>“What, tell stupid stories to embarrass me? Yeah, all the time. It’s awful.”  Senku doesn’t actually seem to mean a word he’s saying though, and that makes some of the tension bleed out of Tsukasa. </p>
<p>“Do you think he’s a good person?”</p>
<p>Senku snorts. “What kind of question is that?” The <em> of course </em> goes unsaid, but somehow, Tsukasa hears it loud and clear. He keeps a close eye on Senku all the way to his house.</p>
<p>He can help one random kid get home today, can’t he?</p>
<hr/>
<p>Senku’s face falls when Tsukasa walks in through the door. “One hundred and fifty-two,” he says, turning his head away. Taiju and Yuzuriha, sitting across from him on the floor, make confused and concerned noises respectively. </p>
<p>It’s not just that his face falls, it’s that he looks <em> crushed</em>. Tsukasa can’t even remember the last time he saw Senku look like that. Then the expression flickers and resolves itself into its usual cool. Yuzuriha, after a pause just long enough to be awkward, hops to her feet to greet Tsukasa. </p>
<p>“Senku was showing us this machine he built. Maybe you can convince him to tell us what it’s for.” She frowns ruefully in Senku’s direction.</p>
<p>Senku looks exactly the same. He looks like he hasn’t changed for a long, long time. Still:</p>
<p>“Is something wrong, Senku?” Tsukasa asks softly. “What did you call me over for?”</p>
<p>“Will you remember if I tell you this isn’t…” Senku pauses, and there is, for a teetering moment, a glimpse of what might have caused that awful expression in the first place. “This isn’t the best way to do this.”</p>
<p>“What—” someone starts. It might be Tsukasa.</p>
<p>Senku raises his hand to interrupt. “You won’t remember this one. I rushed it, like an idiot. Not enough to remember.” His expression is pensive, and on any other day, this would be their normal, him frowning at a bundle of metal and circuits, trying to puzzle out a problem with his latest project while Tsukasa watches and listens and waits.</p>
<p>Senku is not a sympathetic creature. Not on the surface, anyway. He doesn’t cry over sad movies, and he isn’t afraid of breaking any would-be suitor’s heart, and he can stare directly at Tsukasa most days and laugh, but there is a terrible emotion surfacing in his eyes and Tsukasa suddenly recognizes the machine Senku’s holding.</p>
<p>“That’s a time machine.” He knows. He knows, he knows, he knows.</p>
<p>“Yes,” Senku says. To Taiju and Yuzuriha: “See you guys.” </p>
<p>Electricity flares from his hands.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Tsukasa trips on nothing, blinking, blinded. Someone’s hand is on his shoulder, pulling him back and up. “Eight hundred and ninety-eight.”</p>
<p>To his left rushes a wide blue-green river. Sidewalk and tall grasses. To his right stands Senku, eyes bright in the brilliant sunlight.</p>
<p>“Hey, what are you guys waiting for?” Taiju’s voice hollers from further up the path. He comes running, Yuzuriha stopping ahead of them to turn around and watch. He skids to a stop in front of Tsukasa and Senku with a wide, clueless smile. “Come on, slowpokes! Let’s get that rocket launched! This is gonna be so cool!” He continues yelling an excited stream of nonsense and good-natured joy as they continue along the riverside.</p>
<p>Taiju charges ahead, and the easy sound of Yuzuriha’s laughter as she skips forward to meet him floats down to Tsukasa and Senku. “Hopeless,” Senku mutters with a shake of his head. </p>
<p>Ahead, Taiju and Yuzuriha have met at the halfway point of their mad sprint, just barely avoiding colliding by grabbing hold of each other’s forearms and laughing as they spin and stagger to a halt. Yuzuriha’s cheeks are pink. She busies herself with reaching up and trying to smooth down Taiju’s unruly hair. Taiju, blushing, says something Tsukasa and Senku are too far away to hear, and shyly readjusts her headband, painstakingly careful. </p>
<p>There is something that could be genuine fondness in Senku’s eyes.</p>
<p>“You’ve seen them do this many times.” It’s not a question.</p>
<p>“We have.”</p>
<p>Taiju’s laughter is much louder than Yuzuriha’s, and it startles some birds out of a nearby bush. In another version of this story—in any version of this story, though he wouldn’t like to admit it—Tsukasa would rather have them by his side than against him.</p>
<p>But this is not where he needs to be. Senku sighs as if he heard this thought, and hurls the remote control in his hand into the river. </p>
<p>“Hey, big oaf!” he calls. He points at the river. “I dropped my remote. Can you get it?” </p>
<p>Taiju dives into the water without question, and Senku cackles. Tsukasa raises his eyebrows when, a few minutes later, Taiju actually crawls out alive and unscathed, waving the remote wildly, sopping wet. </p>
<p>“I got it!” he shouts. “Senku, here’s your remote!”</p>
<p>Yuzuriha is giggling. She helps Taiju out of the river, but yelps and pushes him away when he tries to hand her the dripping remote. There might be river weeds clinging to his shoulder. Senku joins the other two, picks bits of soggy plant matter off of Taiju’s clothes with equal parts disdain and amusement.</p>
<p>Tsukasa takes one step forward, forgets, remembers, knows only that he can’t take this anymore. </p>
<p>The remote is irrevocably ruined, but Senku takes it from Taiju anyway, shakes it out a few times as he returns to Tsukasa’s side. Taiju and Yuzuriha begin a complicated negotiation about clothing and the comparative likelihood of illness, complete with hand-waving and worried voices. </p>
<p>“Remember this.” </p>
<p>Senku has his eyes fixed on his friends. </p>
<p>In Senku’s right hand is the remote. In Tsukasa’s left hand is the machine that will take him away from this, all this laughter and brightness that stings his eyes. Taiju and Yuzuriha are grinning dopily at each other again, the water sparkling behind them. A breeze, the smell of riverside rot.</p>
<p>“Remember this, Tsukasa, remember—”</p>
<p>Tsukasa leaves this version of the story behind, and slips away into the whirling chaos of other timelines, of new chances, of universes unraveling.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Newly born into the stone world, Senku stumbles three steps away from Tsukasa. Before Tsukasa even opens his mouth, Senku says, “Four hundred and forty-four.” Then he smiles, dangerous, lopsided. “Lucky.”</p>
<p>“You’re three thousand seven hundred years in the future. Modern civilization has been wiped out, and I need your help.”</p>
<p>Senku raises an eyebrow. “This isn’t the first time we’ve done this,” he says, and Tsukasa has his spear pointed at Senku’s throat before the sentence is all the way out.</p>
<p>“Don’t try to stop me. We can still be friends, Senku,” Tsukasa says, and to anyone else, his voice would be unmarred, perfectly smooth and collected. But this is Senku, and Senku hears the quiet plea underneath and still has the absolute nerve to scoff as he surveys the land around them.</p>
<p>“Even Einstein couldn’t fully understand time. Has this <em> worked </em> yet?” There is an extra breath at the end, like he meant to say something else and thought better of it. “Is there a version of this story where your sister survives?”</p>
<p>The truly awful thing is that Senku looks like he <em> means it</em>. Like he really wants to know, like everything else would be worth it if Tsukasa’s plan actually worked. Tsukasa gives his answer by throwing Senku in a cage and refusing to look at him. He does not cry, but sometimes he puts his hand on his spear and wonders. </p>
<p>Senku’s freedom is an eventuality, not a wavering firelight possibility, and this they both know, but Tsukasa has this clever bird trapped for now, so why not make use of it? </p>
<p>(This is what he tells himself so he can sleep without the nightmares. The truth that keeps him up sometimes is that knowing what he knows, the prospect of killing Senku is impossible. There are so many worlds. He could be king of this one if Senku dies, but then what? Probability unfolds before him.) </p>
<p>He sends someone down to the cage every day with some new request for some little scientific invention, and the messengers return empty-handed almost every time.</p>
<p>Once:</p>
<p>“A nitric acid solution,” the messenger says, standing in front of the bars at dawn. Senku looks up, dull-eyed, with cuts on his hands wrapped in scraps of cloth torn off the raggedy tunic Tsukasa’s people gave him.</p>
<p>“He’s gone crazy,” one of the guards mutters. “He’s just been hitting rocks together day in and day out for over a week now. Won’t even answer when I ask what he wants to eat.”</p>
<p>The messenger, who, sure, understands that this return of nature thing is much better than what the world was like before, decides this is not worth investigating. It’s not so much that he doesn’t get paid enough for this (there is no pay) as it is the place doesn’t even have indoor plumbing. He shrugs and turns away. </p>
<p>There is the gravelly sound of rocks breaking open.</p>
<p>Twice:</p>
<p>The old messenger never returns. “Needles,” says the new one, young as the rest of them and burning with bitterness.</p>
<p>Senku scoffs, brushes his hair out of his face, leaving a trace of mud smeared across his forehead. “Tsukasa can figure out how to make those himself.”</p>
<p>“It’ll be winter soon. We need to be able to sew better clothes.”</p>
<p>“He has furs.” The look Senku gives this messenger is painfully neutral, impossible to read. “You all do.”</p>
<p>The guard—the one that still remains, the one that won’t talk about where his friend with the harsh, grating cough went—huffs. “I don’t know <em> what </em> Tsukasa is planning to do with you, guy, but you know you’re going to freeze to death when winter comes if you don’t do something soon, right?”</p>
<p>Senku starts laughing so hard he nearly doubles over. The messenger, unnerved, scurries away. The guard secretly wishes he could follow.</p>
<p>Three times:</p>
<p>Someone different again, with a somewhat more hopeful tone, says, “Stronger rope.”</p>
<p>Senku’s hands are rough and scraped, his face painted with dirt despite the fact that Tsukasa regularly asks someone to bring Senku a tub of water for washing. He doesn’t smile when he meets Yuzuriha’s unrecognizing eyes. “Who was it that fell off the cliffside yesterday?”</p>
<p>“You wouldn’t know him,” the guard, new to this job and this daily exchange, interrupts. “Asagiri Gen.”</p>
<p>Senku tilts his head, raises one eyebrow. “You’re eager today, Taiju. You couldn’t tell me that yesterday because…?”</p>
<p>“I didn’t know yesterday,” the guard says easily. Senku’s eyes track his every movement with the smallest of smiles, but Taiju doesn’t seem bothered by it.</p>
<p>The messenger, who Senku cannot call by name, says, “So? Will you make it?”</p>
<p>Senku bows his head, sobering. “I’ll need more plant fibres.”</p>
<p>On the day Senku escapes, Tsukasa finds the machine he buried in his quarters and twists the components with shaking hands, Senku’s manic laughter echoing in his ears.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Three hundred and one.” Senku is in the lab when Tsukasa goes looking for him, and doesn’t look up from his work for even a second. Suika is there too, asleep, curled up by the foot of the table. </p>
<p>This is new for both of them, the stone world, the uneasy alliance, the people who rely on them extending far beyond immediate family and treasured friends. Tsukasa is learning to settle into new skins quickly. He does not know it yet, but these are the first few timelines he will be able to recall later.</p>
<p>Senku doesn’t look away from the beaker in front of him, partially filled with an clear, colourless liquid. “Suika,” he murmurs, and she jerks to attention.</p>
<p>“Oh! Uh, sorry, I must’ve dozed off…”</p>
<p>“Stay awake, Suika, there’s still work to be done,” Senku mutters absentmindedly, pouring something else (clear, sky blue) into the beaker. The way he reaches out to pat her head is anything but absentminded.</p>
<p>“I’m sorry...I’ll try to stay awake next time.”</p>
<p>“I know you will.” Senku smiles conspiratorially at her. “Great Detective Suika.”</p>
<p>She beams.</p>
<p>Before Senku can send her out on another menial task of find-the-useful-rock, Tsukasa crouches down so he isn’t looming over her and says, “How are you this morning, Suika?”</p>
<p>She flinches, surprised, and Tsukasa wants to hurt someone.</p>
<p>“I-I’m well! Uh, how are you?” In her nervousness, she takes a few steps back, and bumps into Senku. With simultaneous yelps of surprise, dismay, and fear respectively, Tsukasa, Senku, and Suika jerk away from the liquid that splashes to the floor.</p>
<p> Suika makes a noise of apology. “I can clean it up!” she says, straightening to be as tall as her tiny body will allow.</p>
<p>Senku puts a hand on her head to still her. “Better not. This acid is pretty corrosive. You’ll get chemical burns without the right protections. Be glad none of it got on you. Here,” he says, promptly handing her a beaker full of the stuff.</p>
<p>“I can hold onto it—”</p>
<p>“No! I can do it!” Suika insists. She holds it as far away from herself as she can, but she <em> is </em> holding on.</p>
<p>“Of course, if you say so. Ah, Senku—”</p>
<p>But Senku is already pulling on gloves and grabbing rags to clean up with.  “Hm?” he says, slightly muffled from the face mask that appeared while Tsukasa was talking to Suika.</p>
<p>“We should talk later.”</p>
<p>Senku nods slowly, eyes narrowing a fraction. He looks away again to wipe off the table.</p>
<p>Suika opens her mouth to say something, but Senku beats her to it. “Set the beaker on the table. Anywhere is fine, just away from edges.”</p>
<p>“Right!” She hurries to comply.</p>
<p>Senku makes quick work of the remaining mess, refusing to meet Tsukasa’s gaze. </p>
<p>As he pulls off his gloves, he crouches down to Suika’s level. “Listen to me.” Tsukasa almost laughs. This skin of his knows Suika is <em> always </em> listening to Senku. “Mistakes are an ingrained part of the scientific process. They’re ten billion percent vital to making progress. But that means you have to be able to accept them and move on. No use getting bummed out about it. Understand?”</p>
<p>She nods vigorously, fists clenched at her sides. “I know that already, Senku. I promise, I’ll do my best!”</p>
<p>“Just making sure,” Senku says, smiling as he knocks twice on her helmet. His eyes flick up to Tsukasa and suddenly half their planned talk has already happened. “Now, we’re going to need more of these rocks here.” Senku takes something off the shelf behind him and shows it to her. “Find them for me, Detective.”</p>
<p>“Right away!” Suika makes a motion that could almost be called a salute, and with a delighted twirl, she takes off into the woods.</p>
<p>“You’re not going to stay for much longer, are you?” Senku says to Tsukasa. “We’re thousands of years too far ahead to see your sister.”</p>
<p>But Tsukasa has his eyes fixed on the point where Suika disappeared among the trees.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Senku says, “Nine hundred and fifty-six,” at the same time Tsukasa says, “Why?”</p>
<p>Senku tilts his head, waiting.</p>
<p>“Aren’t you happy here? Why do you keep chasing me, Senku?” Even in the places where his memory falters, Tsukasa remembers millenia spent like this, burning and freezing and chasing. Always the chase. “You could stay here and rest and let me go. Don’t you see what you have?”</p>
<p>“Don’t you?” There is something shining in Senku’s eyes.</p>
<p>From downstairs, there is a shout. Tsukasa flinches before recognizing it as joy. Someone is calling their names, disjointed because they’re also laughing. The fire alarm starts blaring. Senku darts down the stairs, hopping the last three steps, Tsukasa not far behind.</p>
<p>When they make it to the living room, Senku receives an armful of small blonde child. “Hold on to her for a minute, will you?” Lillian says. “Your dad managed to set something on fire again.” Senku lifts her up with a grunt, one corner of his mouth turning up.</p>
<p>“If he actually listened to me for once and made ramen instead of trying to cook ultra-fancy meals just to impress Lillian, we wouldn’t be having this problem,” he tells his sister mildly. Behind him, Tsukasa snorts.</p>
<p>“Brother!” the girl shouts, narrowly avoiding punching Senku in the face with one flailing hand.</p>
<p>“Yes. Hello there,” he says to her. Looking to Lillian, he adds, “What’s my old man done this time?”</p>
<p>“Don’t be rude,” Lillian scolds as she goes through the doorway to the smoke-filled kitchen. Senku rolls his eyes. “And don’t roll your eyes at me, young man!”</p>
<p>“She’s really taken to this whole mom thing,” Senku mutters. “I don’t know how she can see behind her back like that.”</p>
<p>“I’m told the common joke is that mothers have eyes in the backs of their heads,” Tsukasa murmurs.</p>
<p>Senku shrugs. “She’s not technically <em> my </em> mom.”</p>
<p>“Senku!” comes a shout from the kitchen. “What’s the fastest way to put out a grease fire!”</p>
<p>“Suffocation,” Senku calls back, sounding downright bored. “Or baking soda, if you must.”</p>
<p>“Still <em> a </em> mother,” Tsukasa feels it is necessary to put in.</p>
<p>“A very new one. They only just got back from the space station.” Senku is squinting at the smoke coming out of the kitchen. He goes to open a window, screwing up his face as he tries to hold up a squirming child with one hand and undo the latch the other. “She’s <em> good </em> at this,” he grumbles almost peevishly.</p>
<p>Over Senku’s shoulder, his sister peers wide-eyed at Tsukasa. Tsukasa smiles at her, softening. Tomorrow, Taiju and Yuzuriha will come over, fill this already overfilled house with brash laughter and the easy immortal recklessness of youth. This little world could almost be good. </p>
<p>“You should stay here. They love you.”</p>
<p>Senku barely hesitates for a second before he huffs, forcing the window all the way open like that will do anything to hide the colour on his cheeks. “If that argument worked, we wouldn’t be doing this. Things unravel quickly as hell when you leave. You <em> know </em> that.” His sister starts thumping her tiny hands on his shoulder. “You want down?” he asks her.</p>
<p>He sets her down. The sound of clattering pans echoes from the kitchen. With a hard frown, Senku’s sister sidles a bit closer, digging her fingers into Senku’s pants leg. A delighted yelp from the kitchen, and the tiniest twist of a smile from Senku as he watches with fond eyes Byakuya stumbling in to scoop up his sister.</p>
<p>Senku asks Tsukasa to stay for dinner, whenever that may end up happening. It is the closest he ever gets to begging.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“—”</p>
<p>There is a version of this story where Senku never shows up. This is the one that rattles Tsukasa to his bones. If there was anything like a constant in this timeline-hopping fracas, it should have been Senku. </p>
<p>In this version of the story, not even his borrowed skin remembers meeting Senku for the first time. In this version of the story, every new voice makes him jump, like this time the numbers will hurt him, like this time he will turn around and Senku will be pushing him away and not pulling him back. In this version of the story, on the last day of her life, Tsukasa hugs his sister close, and whispers apologies to two people, not one.</p>
<p>Later, he will hear about a young scientific prodigy killed in a mysterious accident. No body left. No trace of foul play. Nothing but the gap where everything once was. Tsukasa will leave when he sees Byakuya’s heart-stricken face appear on the TV screen. He will not know what happened to Taiju and Yuzuriha—he will be spared the grief of their deaths one more time. He will not think about this world again.</p>
<p>The weight of the time machine is heavy in his hands. He carries it with him still.</p>
<hr/>
<p>“Seven hundred and twenty-five,” Senku whispers, his face buried in Tsukasa’s chest. “Took you long enough. You can feel it too, can’t you? The timelines are getting further and further apart. We’re so far from where we should be.”</p>
<p>And the soft, scared, little-kid voice is an <em> act</em>, the same way Tsukasa’s low, rumbling, protective-brother voice is an act, but Senku sounds so wistful, so lost. The fact that they’re hugging at all should be a tip-off; there’s no such thing as a touchy-feely Senku. Tsukasa wraps his arms tighter around him anyway. </p>
<p>“What <em> happened </em>to you, Senku?” he murmurs into the pouf of spiky hair in his face.</p>
<p>“<em>You</em> happened.” His reply is barely audible, tinged with unusual bitterness. Then, louder, probably for the sake of the police nearby, “I don’t <em> know</em>. They wouldn’t even tell me anything—they kept me blindfolded for three <em> days</em>—I had to count every second—I haven’t—” A ragged noise that sounds real to anyone who doesn’t know him. A minute twitch of his hands. “Just…don’t go anywhere, please.”</p>
<p>It probably kills Senku inside to sound so helpless when they both know exactly what’s going on, but Tsukasa does stay. So what if it’s just a game of pretend? In this version of the story, he and Senku and Taiju and Yuzuriha have only each other. He feels the pull of this world’s memories on him, remembers things that never happened to him, or at least, never happened to the him that he is right now. Senku, too, is shaking with the remembering of what part he plays in this world’s story.</p>
<p>(Things Tsukasa does not dare say aloud:</p>
<p>Yuzuriha’s terror of sleeveless dresses and the way Tsukasa stopped trying to get into fights when he saw how she froze at the sight of raised fists.</p>
<p>The careful, furious set of Senku’s mouth on a beautiful day in a graveyard, the four of them in front of a gravestone marked with a borrowed name, not a star in sight.</p>
<p>Taiju’s broken sobbing from the bedroom down the hall when days had passed and no one had heard a thing from their scientist.</p>
<p>Tsukasa’s hands, stained, gladly, for the sake of this boy in his arms.)</p>
<p>“The others will want to see you.”</p>
<p>“Don’t,” Senku says, the closest Tsukasa has ever heard him get to a snarl in any timeline. “Don’t. Not in this version.”</p>
<p>The rest of the explanation lingers in the air, and Tsukasa’s chest hurts, knowing now that whatever version of the story he jumps from will always leave a gaping hole in the shape of the possibility of his life. The apartment will be so much emptier when Taiju and Yuzuriha return to it. And he and Senku both know: if they go see the others as they are now, they might never leave.</p>
<p>Neither of them cry. This is the only version of the story where Senku looks Tsukasa in the eye as Tsukasa jumps through time again, and doesn’t try to stop him.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Senku crouches down in front of Tsukasa, who has fallen to his knees. Even like this the height difference is obvious. He still has to tilt his head back a little to meet Tsukasa’s eyes.</p>
<p>“How many do you remember?”</p>
<p>“Seven hundred eighty-four.”</p>
<p>“It’s been a thousand. You don’t remember the ones where I didn’t talk to you for more than a few seconds, any of the ones at the very beginning. None of it worked.” This is not a question. This is a fact, stated as calmly as ‘the moon has many craters’ or ‘nuclear fusion releases energy through the high-speed collision and resultant merging of two atoms.’</p>
<p>Tsukasa isn’t stupid. But his heart pounds.</p>
<p>“Look. Look at what you leave behind you every single time.” He makes a wide, sweeping gesture, and Tsukasa tries to take in their surroundings for the first time.</p>
<p>His senses don’t work, won’t cooperate. Taking his eyes off Senku for even a moment makes his head spin as his brain tries to take in impossibilities not meant for any human mind to take in. All of it at once, all that could be or has been or will soon not be, and he can <em> feel </em> the tears where he left one more chance behind, chasing miracles and begging for a life that wasn’t his to do trade with. Everything, everything, unraveling from where he tried to yank his sister’s life intact out of the tapestry of things. Tsukasa coughs hard, doubles over, and retches.</p>
<p>“Hm.” Senku gets to his feet, away from the puddle of bile Tsukasa is hunched over. “You haven’t eaten in a while, have you?”</p>
<p>Tsukasa sucks in a ragged breath.</p>
<p>“Let’s go back. I’ll help you arrange the funeral. Taiju learned to make Yuzuriha’s infamous dumplings recipe, and I might be sick of eating that every day, but the food will be good for you.”</p>
<p>Senku does nothing with the machine in Tsukasa’s hand, just juts his chin out like a challenge and offers his hand. </p>
<p>Tsukasa takes it.</p>
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